Hi Tracy,

So nice to have you back at RU! Settings are a challenge for me. I write historical, so I’m constantly worried about including too much information. All of those darn rules we learn! I have to find the happy-medium and make it come alive.

Thanks again,
Tracey

Hi Tracy
Wonderful examples of using setting to round out a character and draw the reader into the story’s world.
I love setting if it pulls in the attributes you describe: the character interacting – drawing impressions, what they see and how they see it defining the character as well as the place – or the setting itself is driving action.

Thanks for having me back at RU, Tracey! I love the faculty lounge–very swanky!

As I proceed through the editing process with my editor, I see that I have the same challenge you do–providing too much information.

It’s tough to quell the desire to share it all, to paint a thorough picture for the reader. But we have to trust our reader to take the seeds we plant and create their own imagery from there. I keep reminding myself to trust my reader…my editor reminds me, too!

May we both (and everyone else)find that happy medium!

Tracy

Hi Cathy,

Thanks for your comment. I, too, love the element of characters interacting with setting. It always fascinates me to learn how someone else sees a place, experiences touch, translates scents, reacts to the weather.

There is so much opportunity to bring our characters to life through setting. Now, if I could just master that in my writing!

Tracy

Tracy

Tracy – I struggle to get settings right in my stories. I had to set one story aside because I didn’t feel comfortable with the setting I’d chosen for it. When the story hit some bumps, I realize the setting was part of the problem. Very frustrating!

I agree, it is soooo important to do your research, especially when using a setting you aren’t personally familiar with. It always pulls me out of a story when I come across a description that doesn’t gel with what I know of a place.

I love your ex-Secret Service agent’s take on the garden court. I’m looking forward to reading GIRL 3!

Hi Tracy,

I notice settings in movies. Alfred Hitchcock could make the most mundane scary. Cary Grant running for his life in an open field. Even a roadside motel in Psycho. I’ve been trying to pull the place in my books too.

Mary Jo

Hi Becke,

Thanks for stopping by! I agree that if the setting is ‘off,’ the entire feel of a story can be also. Hope you find the Goldilocks (just right) setting for that story you had to set aside!

I, too, get pulled out of stories whose settings don’t agree with what I know about a place. The only thing that pulls me out faster is a typo!

Hope your writing is going well!

Tracy

Hi Mary Jo,

It is amazing what movie directors can convey through setting. Also amazing to see how some movies fall flat without any attention to setting.

Yet as writers, we don’t have the benefit of working in a visual medium–except the theatre of the readers’ minds. Hmmm…perhaps I should consider film making!

Tracy

Tracy – I just thought of another problem I had with setting in a different story.

I wanted to set it where I live – in Cincinnati, close to the Ohio River. A key scene was set at Newport-on-the-Levee in Kentucky. (You can walk across the bridge from Newport to Cincinnati.)

I realized I was going to have to do a complicated infodump if I used this setting. How else to explain that Cincinnati’s airport is actually in Hebron, Kentucky, and that even though my character lived in Cincinnati, she had to cross the river into Kentucky and then back into Ohio to get home from downtown?

I’m still figuring out this place after 18 years here.

The problem was, how to get my character from Newport back home to Cincinnati without providing a map of the bridges and ring roads. I gave up!

Tracy,

It’s so wonderful to see you here today! And yes, aren’t the burgundy, velvet couches in our lounge cushy?? We also have free, French Vanilla coffee if you can find the pot .

I love when an author does setting well, but I don’t want to be inundated with paragraph after paragraph of description. A few snippets through the POV character’s eyes is much more effective. But you gave me a good reminder – really SEE it through the character’s eyes, not your own.

I often write stories set in Texas because it’s the area I know best. Even though I’ve traveled fairly extensively, I still feel a bit intimidated about settings in other areas. Any tips for getting over that intimidation factor?

Thanks!
Kelsey

Becke,

I can totally relate to your challenge! Sometimes we come across what we think would be a wonderful setting–a place we are familiar with that we forget might take a lot of explanation to make sense to a reader.

How far would we have to take them out of the story to explain the details to them? Sometimes we have to kill our darlings before they are even born! Bummer…

Tracy

Hi Kelsey,

I found the coffee pot–thank you!

I wish I had some pithy advice regarding your intimidation about writing settings in areas that aren’t familiar to you. The best advice I can give is intensive research…but even then your setting may not pass the ‘locals’ test.

Therefore, like you, I stick to places I know, places I have visited, places I have very close contacts who will beta read and slap my hand when I get it wrong.

That’s why I envy writers who work with totally fictional settings because there’s no one to tell them that the drug store is on Duke Street, not Main!

Tracy

My first published book was historical fiction for children, and I probably put in too much setting. Now I try to bring the world to life with quick details here and there, rather than stopping the action. I’m currently writing romantic suspense set in the Southwest, and I want the setting to be a dramatic part of the story. Since I love it here, so far my characters do to… but maybe I’ll have to try a character who hates the heat and desert scenery at some point, for variety!

Hi Kris,

Thanks for stopping by! Your romantic suspense setting sounds wonderful.

I think it’s a great idea to have a range of character reactions to the setting. That gives your reader a fuller perspective from which to draw their mental picture. It also gives your story and characters more depth.

Good luck in your writing endeavors!

Tracy

I love when the setting comes alive in a book especially if it’s a place I’m unfamiliar with. If I know the place, then it excites me when an author goes beyond mentions of the famous or notable places and things, and offers tidbits that only residents or good researchers would know.

Hi Tracey!!

Setting is a huge pitfall for me….my characters prefer to run around in a vast white wasteland, generally naked but with brilliant blue/chocolate brown eyes…..=) I have to force myself to include setting!

I’m hoping someday it will come naturally, that I can both see and write the setting through the characters eyes…

Great post!

carrie

Hi, Tracy! Welcome back. It’s always such fun to have you here. It took me three books to realize I could use setting as part of my conflict and I’m finding it to be so much fun.

In my WIP, my heroine has self-image issues because she’s not thin. I decided to have her live and work in South Beach, the land of beautiful, skinny people. The setting alone is giving me another layer of conflict to deal with.

Thanks for hanging out with us!

Hi Patricia,

I can totally relate to your perspective and greatly appreciate when an author digs deeper than the expected sights and sounds in a setting.

As I mentioned in my post, Girl Three is set in Washington, D.C. I made sure to use a lot of off-the-tourist-map settings to keep the reader engaged–and to give them ideas of places to go and things to see when they visit D.C.

Hopefully readers will like that!

Thanks for stopping by!

Tracy

Hi Carrie,

In my other life as an editor, I cannot tell you how many chocolate brown eyes I see in manuscripts! For some reason, I imagine some ghoulish Halloween candy every time I read that!

Good luck incorporating setting into your writing!

Tracy

Oh Adrienne!

You redefine torturing your characters…fun!

I agree that once you realize that setting can add another layer to your conflict, it takes your writing/characterization to a whole new level. You’ve given a great example of that in your comment. Thanks!

And congratulations on your recent release–MAN LAW. Vic is a trip!

Tracy

Tracy, readers will definitely like that. Folks who know DC will wonder about things they never noticed or heard of before. (I’ve been known to Google tidbits I read in books just to be sure or to get more information.) Others might be intrigued to visit. That’s the power of setting.

Oh no! My current hero has chocolate brown eyes. I was looking at my middle son at the time, who is a fair-skinned African-American with big, brown eyes. Solid color, or so they appear. No specks of gold or any of those other cliches. Very different from mine, which at times appear bronze. That’s how my hero got those chocolate brown eyes.

Sorry, Patricia!

Just remarking on the chocolate eyes I seem to be seeing LOTS of in manuscripts I have read for submissions and manuscripts I have edited. Seems that people equate food and eye color more often than I do!

However, there are evidently different kind of chocolate eyes–milk, dark, molten. I’m waiting to see if anyone’s going to really push it with white chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate eyes!

Tracy

Tracy -

I do make up the small towns I use as settings, but base the basic “flavor” on a real Texas town.

K-

Darn – now I want cookies to go with my coffee…

K-

Hey Kelsey,

Isn’t it about time to switch to wine?

Tracy

Hi Tracy!

If I don’t have a good feel for the setting when I’m reading, I get pulled out of the story. I find myself skimming, looking for clues on the setting.

I love descriptive settings. And for some weird reason, I used to think the setting had to be contained in a single paragraph. I know better now!

I’ve got an ms in the works that takes place in a fictional town. It’s fun to create a place, but I’m still researching the map for commuter airports in Maryland.

Great to have you back with us!

Hi Jennifer,

Thanks for stopping by! I have done the same thing that you mention in your post–had to take myself out of a story to skim back and forward to figure out where I am…what is the setting?

I often advise authors I edit to, “Orient your reader…ground your reader.” It’s very important for us as readers to feel settled with ‘where’ we are in the story so we are comfortable and open to proceeding, not busy wondering and guessing (at least about the setting). It’s totally opposite with story questions, but that’s another post for another day!

I love that you have a fictional town in your ms–and that you are trying to ‘ground’ it with some realistic places. Nice work!

Tracy

At Nationals, two NYT bestselling authors gave a workshop about the historical subgenre. I asked them if they had any pet peeves while reading historical novels. One author said she wanted the year on the first page. A lot of other folks in the workshop seemed to agree with her.

It’s the first thing I look for as well. With the year alone, we can “see” the fashion of the day.

Exactly, Tracey!

It doesn’t take much to orient the reader. Just a few context clues (or a date, if that’s appropriate)can guide their subconscience to settle in and enjoy your story!

It’s like an author’s GPS for the reader!

Tracy

Hi, Kelsey. I’ve been lurking here for a while, but thought I’d weigh in here.
You know, almost all of Stephen King’s stories are set in Maine, and he does a wonderful job at making the setting absolutely integral to the story. Something to think about!

Tracy–

Thank you so much for answering all our setting questions! We’ve really enjoyed chatting with you today.

Tracey